This is a well written article on the lottery around artistic acclaim and fame. My personal connection with William Blake is sitting regularly on a bench near h

This is a well written article on the lottery around artistic acclaim and fame. My personal connection with William Blake is sitting regularly on a bench near his grave to eat my lunch[1]. A poet who resonates strongly with me is Wilfred Owen[2]. He developed some good contacts in literary circles and, had he survived the war, I think he would have found recognition, maybe fame, in the 1920s[3]. What Owen's fame tells me is that fame is a product of both opportunity and luck. His poems were collected and published by admirers/supporters three times following his death, in 1920, 1931 and 1963. But it was that last publication (in my view) that brought him great acclamation and fame, and that only happened because it was published at a time when people were looking for someone who could articulate a denunciation of war in a way they struggled to achieve themselves. Anyway, to offer a personal datapoint: I'll admit that I used to feel (very) resentful that my poetic endeavours had led to scant recognition and zero fame[5]. Nowadays I have a more equitable view - yes, there's still resentment, but there's also great freedom in being able to do my own thing without having to meet the demands of critics and markets. I think the article describes this very neatly: "The first advantage [...] is that you are left alone to do what you want to do. [...] You do not feel commercial pressure, which is often the pressure [to] repeat yourself. [...] You can go about assembling a body of work on the schedule and in the manner you see fit. [...] you can create your artworks in a way which means they are as they need to be rather than how the market wishes to receive them." [1] - https://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/blake.htm https://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/blake.htm [2] - https://www.bl.uk/people/wilfred-owen https://www.bl.uk/people/wilfred-owen [3] - Though apparently W. B. Yeats disagreed, saying Owen's poetry was "all blood, dirt, and sucked sugar stick" and "unworthy of the poet's corner of a country newspaper"[4] [4] ... according to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Owen#Poetry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Owen#Poetry [5] - I consider myself a good poet[6]. Nobody can persuade me otherwise! [6] - No link to my poems; I'm more interested in commenting on the vagaries of fame here than sneaking in some spam links.